[3.5] Incarnum With Feats Only

[Thurbane]

Hey all,

Looking for some quick-and-easy (?) help with incarnum.

I own the book, but every time I've started reading the rules, I've gotten distracted.

Long story short - I'd like a quick guide on using feats (not incarnum classes) to use incarnum abilities.

What feats do I need, and what are the best abilities to pick up?

Cheers - T

[Technetium43]

Check this out. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?321557-The-World-in-One-Feat-A-Shape-Soulmeld-Handbook) Of note are the Shape Soulmeld feat (obviously), as well as the various Open X Chakra feats/spells/powers.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Take your Shape Soulmeld at 1st or 3rd, and Bonus Essentia at 6th, and maybe one of the +1 essentia feats later on.

[Fizban]

Without taking a class you'll have access to only one soulmeld for each copy of Shape Soulmeld that you take. You'll have no essentia so you'll only get the base ability values, unless you're an incarnum race that starts with bonus essentia, or you take the Bonus Essentia feat later (at 6th or higher).

It's a lot like trying to use ToB maneuvers with feats only: a 1 level dip beats it in every way unless there is literally only one thing that you want.

[Thurbane]

Check this out. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?321557-The-World-in-One-Feat-A-Shape-Soulmeld-Handbook) Of note are the Shape Soulmeld feat (obviously), as well as the various Open X Chakra feats/spells/powers.

Take your Shape Soulmeld at 1st or 3rd, and Bonus Essentia at 6th, and maybe one of the +1 essentia feats later on.

Without taking a class you'll have access to only one soulmeld for each copy of Shape Soulmeld that you take. You'll have no essentia so you'll only get the base ability values, unless you're an incarnum race that starts with bonus essentia, or you take the Bonus Essentia feat later (at 6th or higher).

It's a lot like trying to use ToB maneuvers with feats only: a 1 level dip beats it in every way unless there is literally only one thing that you want.

All good advice (especially the handbook).

Thank you.

[Particle_Man]

Some incarnum feats grant a bonus essentia. That said, most of the feats force you to "lock in" your essentia for 24 hours (midnight metamagic being an exception, locking essentia in until the spells tied to essentia are cast). You are also still limited by character level as to how many essentia can be put into a particular feat or soulmeld. So you could burn feats to get some incarnum feats (for the essentia) and shape soulmeld (for a soul meld or two in which to place the essentia but that is really doing it the hard way when you could just take a level of incarnate.

There are some class guides out there if you want to learn more about the classes. They are much more free with moving essentia around. That said, soulborn is a low tier class compared to incarnate and totemist.

For prestige classes, sapphire hierarch is an excellent cleric/incarnate multi-classer, and dwarven forgemaster is very flavourful.

[KillingAScarab]

Using incarnum feats to increase your essentia pool to a non-zero number is going to be important. I have considered, but haven't yet attempted, using the generic warrior (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm#warrior) and spending the feats from that to see if it can surpass the soulborn class. There are certainly things which, by default, this wouldn't be able to replicate; the elven substitution level allowing ranged smite attacks comes to mind. But, I suspect the real challenge will be in choosing the best soulmelds. Also, it is unclear if things like class alignment restrictions should still apply when you use a soulmeld from the incarnate or soulborn lists.

[prufock]

Two levels of chameleon will allow you to change up your soulmelds every day.